Believe
by morph
Summary: We have to believe in the human race... we have to believe in Jack... - The Doctor finds Captain Jack and has a sad conversation. A post Children of Earth fic. TARDIS POV. Part of my TARDIS 100 series.


AN/ Writing this helped me feel a little better after Torchwood's _Children of Earth _aired several months ago. I've just taken my time posting it, that's all. Written in the POV of the TARDIS and part of my TARDIS 100 series. The BBC owns everything, but a few lines from other things slipped in there.

* * *

Captain Jack Harkness. Immortal. Fixed. A Fact. For someone who has so much life, excess brimming over... it has not been entirely kind to him.

My Doctor and I understand a lot of things. We understand space and time. We understand life and death. We understand arrivals and departures. Companions, allies, enemies; they all come and go. The Doctor hates it when he loses a friend, but he's used to it. He moves on, always moving on. He also has to always find something or someone to believe in. He has to, or he'll go insane. I'm always there to comfort him. Barring accidents, I'm the singular constant thing in his life. I'm his anchor.

When we next caught up with Jack, it was obvious that he had lost his anchor. He had lost his belief in himself, and a bit in the human race as well. The last time we saw him, it was right after I had towed Earth back to its proper orbit after our encounter with Davros and our good-bye to all the companions who had helped to save the world. Jack had been happy then, carefully optimistic about the future. It was depressing seeing him so low now.

The Doctor invited Jack back inside me. It was raining hard, as it does on Bi-Delta 9. I'd gotten my months mixed up and landed right in the middle of their two-year long rainy season. The men hung their long coats up to dry and took a seat. I grumbled slightly. Jack would forever more feel strange and uncomfortable to me and the Doctor. The man who shouldn't exist, but who can't stop being our friend.

I soon realised why the Doctor had gone through the effort of bringing Jack back to me. It was more than the fact it was raining. One peek into the Captain's mind told me all I needed to know. He was lost.

"_Doctor..."_

"_I know. I saw it in his eyes. That, and the fact he was standing alone in the rain. I wasn't fooled by that grin."_

"So Jack... tell me what's going on," the Doctor said out loud.

The captain sighed. He didn't want to talk about it, but he knew that he should. The Doctor was probably one of the few individuals in the whole universe who could understand. "So much has happened since I saw you last... so many horrible things and only a few good ones. I don't belong on Earth any more, Doctor. I've... I've failed to do my part."

The Doctor listened quietly. "Earth is still there, right?"

"Yeah, the planet is still there... but..." he swallowed, trying to keep his emotions in check. "I lost my team, Doctor."

The Doctor remembered, after the Year That Never Was with the Master when he said good bye to Jack in Cardiff, Jack had told him and Martha about his team and how the urge to get back to them was what kept him going. Then when Jack and Torchwood had helped us with Dravros' latest uprising, his team had been reduced down to two other members, but they were still strong. Now things had changed again for the worse.

"I'm sorry, Jack," the Doctor said, sympathetic. I made a low sound in my engines.

Jack was quiet for a while. When he spoke again, it was soft and slow. "There's another thing too, Doctor... I remember when you told me about what had happened to your planet, that choice you made - one planet, or the universe - and I wondered at the time if I could make similar choices when it came to someone I loved... and I hoped I would never have to make that choice..." His gaze was down on the grating of my floor. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. His eyes were moist.

The Doctor laced his fingers together and adopted a similar pose to Jack's. He was sad, but still listening. "What did you have to do?"

"There were aliens... we called them the 4-5-6... and they were using human children do give them chemicals so they could get high."

The storm darkened the Doctor's eyes. The horror. Unfortunately, in our experience, it wasn't difficult to believe.

"Back in 1965 they came to Earth," captain Jack explained, "and to protect the planet, we gave them..._ I_ gave them twelve children. We didn't know at the time what they used them for. But then they came back... and this time they wanted more. A lot more... and if they didn't get them, they would destroy the planet."

The Doctor sighed quietly. He was angry at himself for not being there, for not helping. There was nothing we could do about it now though – the events had happened. Tragic though they were, we could not go back and change them now.

"I tried to challenge them, Doctor, but they called my bluff. They filled the building with poison gas... Ianto..." Jack swallowed painfully. It was obvious how much Ianto had meant to him. "It came down to that choice... " he managed to continue. "One child... or a full ten percent of the children of Earth."

The Doctor looked at Jack. "What happened?" We could tell that Jack's answer would not be a good one.

"I killed the 4-5-6 using the frequency they had been using to control and talk through the children... but in doing so... it..." Jack wiped his eyes.

The Doctor looked down again. Jack didn't have to say what it had done to the child. "Who was it?"

"My grandson."

At that confession, the Doctor closed his eyes. I waded through Jack's mind to give him the same type of mental hug I had given the Doctor after the war. The Doctor opened his eyes and put his hand on Jack's shoulder. He didn't need to say anything, Jack knew it all.

There was another long pause. The immortal man sniffled and cleared his throat. He gathered his composure together again. "Gwen survived... and her husband... and they're going to have a baby... the one silver lining, I guess."

There, something to believe in.

"Maybe she'll name the kid after you," the Doctor said. He was trying to lighten the mood, but his hearts weren't in it.

"I don't deserve that."

"You deserve it just as much as I would."

"She made a video. It was intended to be one of those 'if you find this tape, here's what happened to us' accounts... and in it, she wondered about the times when Earth has been in danger and you haven't come to save the day, Doctor. She thought it was because there are times when you look at the human race and turn away in shame."

The Doctor blinked. "What would make her say that?"

"I'm not blaming you for what happened, Doctor... we can't rely on you to save the world all the time, just enough times to keep it spinning, but... she said that because the British Government was agreeing with the 4-5-6's plan. They were going to give them the children, Doctor, and they were using the army to do it by force."

The Doctor was horrified again. He didn't want to believe that but Jack wouldn't lie."What _is_ it with Prime Ministers lately?"

Jack shook his head. He couldn't believe the human race sometimes either. "He didn't last long in office after."

The Doctor ran his hand through his hair. "Well... humans do some bloody stupid things sometimes... But I believe that on the whole, they're always worth saving, but sometimes you get a bad apple."

Jack sighed again with a slight nod. I sang to him the old song I had made for him long ago.

The Doctor changed the subject. "What are you going to do now?"

"Keep moving on, I suppose. Only thing I can do..."

"_You may as well offer, Doctor..."_ I whispered.

"Um... you want to stay with me for a while?"

Jack shook his head. "Thanks, but no thanks. I think I need to be alone for a while longer yet... you seem to be doing the same." He looked around at my large, quiet control room. "No attractive female companion running around?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No. I guess I also think I need to be alone for a while. It gets hard... when you live so long and so dangerously. Your hearts get broken too many times."

"You don't have to remind me," Jack said.

"I guess we have more in common now than ever."

Jack nodded. A little smile tugged on his lips, but it didn't last. "I should get going... thank you."

"Will you be okay?" The Doctor asked in all seriousness.

"Yeah... give it a while... a few decades maybe... and I might be okay. Will you be okay?"

"You know me, Jack. I'm known for my bounce-back ability."

"Yeah."

In other words, it was going to take some time for the Doctor, too. It was there in his eyes. He wasn't going to be looking for a serious new companion for a while yet. More's the shame, in my opinion. I still believe that he needs someone to help him out, to stop him from going too far.

Jack stood and grabbed his coat. It wasn't dry yet, but considering he was going back out into the rain, that didn't much matter. I saw he intended to head to a shelter soon, and that made me feel better about leaving. I didn't want to admit I was looking forward to getting rid of his _strangeness_ again, but I was. That's always a factor when he visits us now, and it always will be so long as our time streams don't cross.

I left Jack with a parting thought. _"Tomorrow is another day. The hurt will ease."_

The Doctor followed Jack to the door to see him off.

"Good luck, Jack."

Jack put his coat on, it making him remember and miss Ianto. "You too, Doctor." He gave him a little salute, as was his custom when saying good bye to him. There was no mischief in his eyes this time though, just leaden sadness and grief.

The Doctor watched Jack leave and leaned against my door frame, his arms folded. His eyes were dark and he had a slight frown.

"_We need to believe in them, my Doctor. We need to believe that they will do the right thing. We need to believe in Jack."_

The Doctor closed my door against the cold, wet draft and, with heavy hearts, piloted me away.


End file.
